June 14th, 2011

The last amazing set I photographed at the 2011 Bellevue Jazz Festivalwas by three-time GRAMMY® nominee for Best Jazz Vocal Album, Tierney Sutton and the Tierney Sutton Band at the Theatre at Meydenbauer Cente Friday, June 3rd. Tierney Sutton Band has collaborated for a span of 17 years. They have also been awarded the JazzWeek Award for Vocalist Of The Year, earned consecutive nominations for Jazz Journalist Association awards, recorded several number one albums, and garnered critical praise throughout the world. Tierney Sutton, Vocals, Christian Jacob, Piano, Kevin Axt, BassRay Brinker, Drums. What a great sound this group has and Tierney’s vocls are so sweet and expressive.

Comprised of acclaimed vocalist Tierney Sutton and instrumental virtuosos Christian Jacob, Trey Henry, Kevin Axt and Ray Brinker, the band is an incorporated partnership and a model of both musical and business unity. Members of The Tierney Sutton Band have played and recorded with a diverse array of music legends including Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Placido Domingo, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor and countless others, yet the Tierney Sutton Band has demanded and received their commitment for almost two decades.

The Band’s Album On The Other Side has been called by BusinessWeek “A Masterpiece…eloquent, honest and magnificently sung and played.” The band’s most recent GRAMMY® nominated album, Desire, has been described by The Chicago Sun Times as “a conceptual masterpiece.”

October 30th, 2010

The amazing music of Ryuichi Sakamoto was wonderful in concert Saturday night at the Moore Theatre as the Earshot Jazz Festival presented along with the Seattle Theatre Group the Japanese musician celebrating his recent double-CD release on Decca label. Seattle is one of only ten cities Sakamoto has selected for his rare North American tour.

“The two-volume release, Out of Noise and Playing the Piano, presents a unique insight into Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music. While it is nearly impossible to categorize Sakamoto’s work into one ganger, two threads have been ever-present in his music since his days as composition student at Tokyo University of the Arts in the early 1970’s: classical piano and experimentation.

Among Sakamoto’s early influences were turn of the 20th century French composer Claude Debussy and German electronica pioneers Kraftwerk. As a young composer Ryuichi Sakamoto was already fascinated with blending classical melodic touch with technology and electronic beats.

In late 1970’s Sakamoto himself became a force in early electronica as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (one of the first Japanese acts to break into European and American scenes).

Beyond Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuichi Sakamoto added another dimension to his music. Composing a score to 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Sakamoto found one more way to explore music. Subsequently, he composed music for a number of films, winning a Grammy and an Oscar in 1987 for the best original score for The Last Emperor (Sakamoto co-wrote the score with David Byrne and Cong Su).

January 31st, 2010

Kurt Elling in performance at the Bellevue Jazz Festival last spring.

“Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman,” by Kurt Elling won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album tonight at the 52nd annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. He is always wonderful to see live and this album is a fine example of his music.